Raison D'être
by TolkienScholar
Summary: Drabble Collection. Reflections and snippets about the Umbrella Academy and these damaged siblings' "raison d'être": each other. A belated contribution to Inktober 2019.
1. One Seventh Is an Impossible Fraction

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges: **PP; NC; BAON; FPC; Rum; ER; Shower; Fence; Star; SN; TY  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (N); Click Bait It (N); New Fandom Smell (Y); Rian-Russo Inversion (N); Tissue Warning (N)  
**Representations: **Vanya Hargreeves; Sir Reginald Hargreeves; Supernatural Powers; Revenge Autobiography; Emotional Abuse and Neglect; Extra-Ordinary; Birthday Cake  
**Bonus Challenges: **Call Me Dantes; Second Verse (Found Family; Non-traditional; Not a Lamp); Chorus (Delicious Lie; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges: **TY (Enfant); SN (Rail, Spare)  
**List (Prompt): **Service Multi-Word Prompts (Cutting Something)  
**Word Count: **300

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**A/N: As with my arrival to **_**The Umbrella Academy**_** itself, my arrival to Inktober is quite late, but I shall start at the beginning all the same. Day 1 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Birthday.**

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One Seventh Is an Impossible Fraction

_Excerpt from the Foreword of _Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven _by Vanya Hargreeves. Reprinted with permission._

One seventh is an impossible fraction.

One sixth is doable. You cut the cake in half, then cut each half into thirds. Sure, there are easier fractions to make, but all things considered, one sixth isn't bad.

Now try asking someone to cut the cake into sevenths. Go ahead. Try it.

Or let me just spare you the trouble. Because I've been asking for one seventh of everything my whole life, and I can tell you from experience: It's impossible. No one can do it. No one even knows where to start.

When it comes to birthday cake, there are workarounds. You can cut the cake into eighths and save the extra piece for Pogo, always assuming you can manage to keep Five from snagging more than his share. Or you can cut it in sixths and then divide the sixth piece in two. Which is, of course, unfair to both Number Six and Number Seven, but I guess it works out since Ben is dead anyway.

A father's attention, however, doesn't have any workarounds. Or at least, my father's doesn't. I'm not denying that he's a brilliant man; there are so many books out there on his accomplishments in science and mathematics that I doubt I could cast a shadow on his genius if I tried.

But like everyone else, Sir Reginald Hargreeves doesn't know how to cut into sevenths. Least of all his love and attention. So he cut into sixths, and then, if he remembered, he might allow me to lick the icing and crumbs off the knife now and then. And if I happened to slice my tongue sometimes in the process… well, he never really seemed to care.


	2. Under Control

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** NC; ToS; BAON; Rum; RoB; Fence; T3; O3  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (Y); New Fandom Smell (Y); Ethnic and Present (N); Rian-Russo Inversion (N); Real Family (N); Team Player (N); Tissue Warning (N)  
**Representations: **Diego Hargreeves; Klaus Hargreeves; Luther Hargreeves; Allison Hargreeves; Stutter; Superheroes; Fighting the Bad Guys; I Shall Conquer This  
**Bonus Challenges: **Second Verse (Muck & Slime; Middle Name; Unwanted Advice; Found Family; Non-traditional); Chorus (Head of Perseus; In the Trench; Mouth of Babes; Wabi Sabi)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges: **T3 (Terse; Thimble); O3 (Oath)  
**Word Count: **600

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**A/N: Day 2 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Guns.**

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Under Control

"Let him gggg—" The muscles in Diego's throat strained as he tried to force out the word. Heat rushed to his cheeks._ Focus. FOCUS!_

But he couldn't focus, not with Klaus there in front of him, whimpering and struggling in the robber's iron grip, the barrel of a revolver jammed against his temple. Not with the robber grinning at him, a wide, crooked grin that was the only feature Diego could see under the black knitted mask: a grin without a face.

"Let him ggggggg—" _Picture the word in your head. It's two letters, two stupid little letters…_

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," came the crook's mocking voice. "Come again?"

"Let him gg— free!" It was the wrong word, but the right one wouldn't come, and the only thing he could focus on was Klaus's eyes, bugged out with fear behind the man's enormous gloved hand, begging him to do something, _anything_. But what could he do that wouldn't just get them both killed?

The crook chuckled, the wide mouth a gaping black hole in the empty face. "What's the matter, kid? You scared?"

"I'm nnn—" A flurry of shots sounded from the landing below. Diego spared a glance downward, but Luther and Allison were nowhere in sight; he was on his own here. "I'm nnnnnnn—"

"You're n-n-not sc-sc-scared?" The man's lips pulled into a babyish exaggerated frown. "Well, aren't you just a b-b-brave little h-h-hero?"

Diego's fingers twitched, longing to put a knife in the middle of that mocking mouth, knowing that the crook would blow his brother's brains out before it ever left his hand. _What to do? What to do?_

"That's right, kid. Keep those hands where I can see them, and we'll all get out of this just fine. No need to be af-f-f-fraid." The hateful grin came back.

"Actually," said a voice, "my brother doesn't really have a problem with the letter _f_."

Then Luther's fist collided with the robber's head, and he crumpled to the ground, Klaus barely rolling out of the way in time to avoid being crushed. Allison appeared over the side of the bannister and caught the gun as it skittered it over the edge.

There was a moment's heavy silence.

Which Klaus, true to form, broke immediately. "You know, Allison, that was exactly what _I_ was trying to say," he chattered, scrambling to his feet. "Of course, none of you could hear me with that _revolting_ glove in my mouth, but I was just telling him what a _terrible_ impression of a stutter he was doing, just awful, not like Diego's one bit…"

Luther came over to Diego, ignoring Klaus's ramblings. "You okay, bro?"

Diego nodded. "I had it under ccccc—, under cccccc—"

"Under control, yeah, I'm sure," said Luther, rolling his eyes. "Whatever, you kept him talking long enough for us to get here. At least the stutter's good for something." He patted Diego on the shoulder in what was probably supposed to be an understanding, "good team leader" kind of way and turned his attention to mission wrap-up protocols.

Diego followed suit, though inwardly he was seething. "Good for something"? Like what? Making him look like a scared little kid about to pee his pants? Making him look like a coward incapable of protecting his brother?

"Let him go!" he muttered under his breath. "Let him go!" Why was it always so easy once he didn't need the word anymore?

"I'm nnnot scared. I'm _not_."

He wasn't. He just had to find a way to convince the bad guys of that fact.


	3. Feet of Clay

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** PP; LL; NC; ToS; BAON; Rum; ER; Star; Fence; O3; TY  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (N); New Fandom Smell (Y); Real Family (N); Misunderstood (N); Tissue Warning (N)  
**Representations: **Luther Hargreeves; Sir Reginald Hargreeves; Hero Worship; Good Son; Dealing with Grief; Supernatural Powers; Being Extraordinary; Moon Living  
**Bonus Challenges:** Sitting Hummingbird; Second Verse (Grease Monkey; Rock of Ages; Spinning Plates; Found Family; Nontraditional); Chorus (Infinity; Larger Than Life; Peddling Pots)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges: **O3 (Oust)  
**List (Prompt):** Service Single Word Prompts (Disappointment)  
**Word Count: **200

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**A/N: Day 3 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Monocle.**

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Feet of Clay

He holds onto the missing monocle like a lifeline. It isn't proof, he knows that. He's not an idiot. And the last conversation he had with Dad—the anxious ramblings, the vague hints Dad refused to elaborate on—that's not proof either. There is no proof, no hard evidence he can go out and collect, document, make observations. Vacuum seal and send back to earth for Dad to examine and draw conclusions, because Luther isn't the scientist, isn't the detective. He sees the pieces, not how they fit together.

And yet he can't let go of it. Can't wrap his head around the idea that his father—the man who raised him to believe in being extraordinary, the man he all but worshiped, the man he built his identity around—could have been taken out of this world by something so mundane as a heart attack. Faced with accepting that, he finds he's willing to believe almost anything else, even if it means accusing his own brother (because if not Diego, then who?) of murder. Anything to keep the image of his father from toppling off of its pedestal. Because if that image falls… then what is left for him?


	4. Run, Boy, Run

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** PP; NC; BAON; Rum; ER; Fence; O3; TY  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (Y); New Fandom Smell (Y); Real Family (N); Tissue Warning (N); Trope It Up C – Time Travel (N)  
**Representations: **Five Hargreeves; Hargreeves Siblings; Time Travel; Apocalypse; Death and Destruction; Tattoo  
**Bonus Challenges:** Some Beach; Second Verse (Found Family; Non-traditional; Spinning Plates; Lyre Liar); Chorus (Odd Feathers; A Long Dog; ; Abandoned Ship; Messing with Morlocks; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges: **TY (Ntaiv, Enfant)  
**List (Prompt):** Service Single Word Prompts (Destruction)  
**Word Count: **400

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**A/N: Day 4 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Death. The title is taken from the song of the same name by Woodkid.**

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Run, Boy, Run

Five tore his eyes away from the corpse and tried to unsee whatever it was he had recognized in the man's still, pallid face. He pushed himself to his feet, longing to find a way back to his own time, to escape from all this death and destruction.

Instead, he found more bodies.

_You don't _know_ it's them,_ he told himself as he picked his way through the wreckage. _You _can't_ know._ He knelt beside a Latino man sprawled beneath the rubble, trying not to notice the scar over the eyebrow, the one whose story he'd heard boastfully retold a thousand times. _It could all be a coincidence._ Urgently, he shook the man's shoulder. No response. The body was stiff under his shaking hands. _They could be strangers, just three— _He stumbled hurriedly past the black woman, her beautiful face turned up to the ashy sky— _three strangers who were unlucky enough to be near this old house when the world came to an end. Three— Four—_

The lie died unthought before he could finish it. The fourth body was scrawny, with the sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks of a drug addict, but that wasn't how he knew. It was the tattoo, dusty but all too clear on the dead man's outstretched, broken arm. The same tattoo Five was now clutching on his own wrist.

A black umbrella.

The first body had been Luther; somehow Five had known that as soon as he saw him, though by the looks of it he must be fifteen years or more into the future. The second was Diego, the third Allison. The drug addict could only be Klaus. Even now, he could not miss the irony in the fact that he had found his siblings in order of their numbers.

He was Number Five. That left… "Ben!" he screamed, lurching to his feet. "Vanya!" He ran down the demolished street, stopping to peer into the faces of the corpses. He tripped over rocks and broken cobblestones, scraping his knees and the palms of his hands until there was no skin left, only blood and grit and grime. He examined body after decaying body as the sun slowly went down over an empty world, with no one but him left to see it. There was no sign of Ben or Vanya. Alive or dead, they, like the others, were gone.

He kept on running.


	5. It's Raining More Than Ever

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** SoC; PP; LL; NC; SIN; ToS; BAON; Cluster; ER; Fence; T3; SHoE; Measure  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (N); New Fandom Smell (N); Ethnic & Present (N); Booger Breath (N); Real Family (N); Team Player (N); Tissue Warning (N)  
**Representations: **Klaus Hargreeves; Ben Hargreeves; Sir Reginald Hargreeves; Hargreeves Family; Umbrella Academy; Drug Abuse; Saving the World; Dead but Still With Us  
**Bonus Challenges:** Under the Bridge; Second Verse (Found Family, Non-traditional, Middle Name, Lyre Liar, Casper's House, Shiver & Shake); Chorus (Larger than Life, Mouth of Babes, Odd Feathers, Wabi Sabi)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges: **SHoE (Terse, Brood); T3 (Terse, Tether)  
**Word Count: **800

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**A/N: Day 5 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Umbrella. The title is taken from the song "Umbrella" by Rihanna and Jay Z.**

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It's Raining More Than Ever

"Why the umbrella?" inquiring minds want to know. Every interview—_The Washington Post_,_ The Boston Globe, Time Magazine_—always some young reporter, wet behind the ears and bursting to make their big break by answering the question that's on everyone's minds. "Mr. Hargreeves, Mr. Hargreeves! What's the significance of the umbrella? Why not a broom, say, or a spatula? Does the umbrella have a special meaning, Mr. Hargreeves?"

And every time, Sir Reginald Hargreeves only smiles a knowing smile and calls for the next question, dooming the poor young reporter to remain in obscurity.

Klaus is not exactly what you'd call an "inquiring mind." That would require being sober, and sobriety is not his favorite thing lately, lately being the last three or so years of his life. Klaus doesn't give a crap about "Why the umbrella?"; Dad could change the name to the Toilet Bowl Brush Academy for all he cares. To be honest, it would be a more accurate name for this disaster of a family. Probably he wouldn't even notice, anyway; it's wonderful the things you can avoid noticing when you spend your days in a drug-addled stupor. The ghosts, for example. Especially the ghosts.

"You're talking to yourself again."

All except one, that is. Klaus glares across the room. "I'm sorry, do you have something better to do than listen to my maudlin reflections on our life story?"

Ben turns from the window, arms folded in an attitude of utter disapproval. "Yes. Like, literally anything else. And stop referring to yourself in the third person; it's creepy."

"You're creepy."

"Says the guy wearing black eye shadow."

"Says the guy who's literally dead."

Ben goes quiet. He turns to look out the window again.

"Wait, Ben…" Klaus jumps to his feet, then has to grab onto the bedrail while he waits for the room to stop spinning like the Tilt-a-Whirl at a crappy county fair. It takes longer than it should, and Klaus wonders briefly if he should be concerned. He decides not. "I'm sorry, Ben, I didn't mean that," he protests, going to stand next to his brother. For the millionth time, he wishes he could hug Ben, or at least put a hand on his shoulder instead of having it pass right through him, which is literally the worst thing Klaus could do at the moment given that he's just stuck his foot in his mouth again about Ben's being, you know, dead. Too bad he didn't think of that _before_ he tried it.

"Again with the third person," Ben grumbles, stepping away from Klaus's awkward and futile attempts at physical connection. "I can see you, you know; you don't have to narrate everything you do."

"You can't see inside my head," Klaus replies. "And how I really, _truly_ do mean well—wait, or _can you_?"

"For the last time, no, Klaus, I can't read your mind. Not one of the perks of the afterlife."

"Oh." He sounds inordinately disappointed for someone who's heard this same answer at least twenty times.

Ben softens. "But I do know you mean well. Even if you have a… strange way of showing it." He backs up again as Klaus starts going in for another hug. He fails to notice where he's going until Klaus full-on body slams the dresser which Ben is now standing in the middle of, bounds off of it, and crashes to the floor. Ben drops to a crouch beside him. "Klaus? Hey, Klaus, are you okay?"

Klaus gives him a silly grin. "Great!" His eyes stare unfocused up at the ceiling, so dilated the irises are almost invisible. "Just great…"

Ben sighs and lowers himself to the floor to wait Klaus out. It's the only thing to do when he gets this bad, and Ben finds himself doing it a lot these days. At least there's somebody here to sit with him, since the rest of the siblings evidently have more important things to do than worry about whether this will be the time Klaus finally ODs and who's going to call 911 when he inevitably does. (Preferably someone corporeal who can actually be heard by those in the land of the living.)

"By the way," Ben says, though even if Klaus is still listening, he won't remember a word when he comes out of it, "I have a theory about the umbrella thing. I think Dad meant it to have something to do with us being some sort of protection for the world. Like how an umbrella protects you from the rain, you know?" He looks down at Klaus's wrecked body and then at his own, the scars from his grisly demise hidden under the black hoodie. "Problem is, we couldn't protect the world because there was never anybody to protect us first."


	6. Probably Crazy

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Umbrella Academy**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** SoC; PP; LL; NC; SIN; ToS; BAON; FPC; Cluster; RoB; ER; Fence  
**Individual Challenges: **In a Flash (N); Click Bait It (N); New Fandom Smell (N); No Punny Business (Y); Cuppa (N); Real Family (N); Overrated (N); Trope It Up C – Deaging (N); Time Is Relative (N)  
**Representations:** Five Hargreeves; Vanya Hargreeves; Delores; Mannequin; Hargreeves Family; Confiding in Someone; Do the Math; Time Travel; Temps Agent; Deaged to Adolescence; Apocalypse  
**Bonus Challenges:** Under the Bridge; Soul-Like; Second Verse (Rock of Ages; Younger You; Middle Name; Found Family; Non-traditional; Not a Lamp); Chorus (Sitting Hummingbird; Messing with Morlocks; Head of Perseus; In the Trench; Larger Than Life; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade)  
**Word Count: **500

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**A/N: Day 6 of the "Official" TUA Inktober by totallyevan prompt list: Mannequin.**

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Probably Crazy

"We" was a slip. A bad one. Maybe cataclysmically bad.

When Five told Vanya she was the only one he could trust, what he meant was that he'd spent the last several hours calculating the probability that any of his siblings would believe his story, and Vanya had come out as the most likely. His conjecture was that her ordinariness was the deciding factor, but she hadn't liked hearing that, so he'd quickly adapted it to "because you'll listen." This, of course, was also accurate. According to his calculations, she and Luther were the only ones likely to give him the time of day, and given the huge change in Luther's appearance (pun most definitely intended), it was probable that there were some major unaccounted for factors in that equation.

Vanya, on the other hand, seemed much the same as Five had left her: gentle, quiet, patient, passive. The same girl who'd fix him fluffernutter sandwiches when he was exhausted from practicing spatial jumps, only now it was black coffee after a massive failure of a time jump, and he was more exhausted than he'd ever been in his life.

Which was probably why the "we" had slipped out and potentially ruined everything after all.

Five had always been good at math. Mostly self-taught, since the Umbrella Academy was more superhero training than real school, but even so, he'd gotten pretty far. He'd regularly astonished the Handler by correcting the equations he was given at the start of a mission, averting several disasters in the process. In fact, he liked to think he deserved some credit for ensuring the abolishment of American slavery, as without his intervention the soldier who shot General Stonewall Jackson would have been killed a full minute too soon, potentially changing the outcome of the Civil War.

This time he'd applied his skills to determining exactly the right way to present his message. And while it felt like the worst of betrayals, he had quickly realized that he'd have to omit Delores from his narrative if he hoped to have a shred of credibility. Amidst time travel, malfunctioning powers, deaging to adolescence, and, oh yes, the literal _Apocalypse_ happening in eight days, his mannequin girlfriend turned out to be the part that was too much to be believed.

But he was tired, and his mind wasn't working very well, and so he'd fallen back into the comfortable habit of referring to himself and Delores as "we." Leaving him now with the choice of either explaining to Vanya that he'd been dating a mannequin for the last forty-five years, or sounding like his lonely stint in the future had turned him into Gollum: _"Yesss, my preciousss, we knows the Apocalypse is coming, yes we does."_ Neither option seemed likely to help his case that he wasn't crazy.

"You got anything stronger?" he asked Vanya, holding up his coffee mug. If he was to make it through the rest of this conversation, he was going to need it.


End file.
